Love Nuggets Part 3: Approach with compassion, act with mercy.

Below is part three in our five-part series of "Love Nuggets" - Curated by Suzzana Mathews, The Date Maven.

3. Approach with compassion, act with mercy.

In my clients’ lives, I’ve seen how dating often gets trickier as we get older. And the assumptions people make are often game-enders. Some of that has to do with external factors and some of that has to do with internal factors. Much of our dating and relationship frustration comes from our inability to understand our partner.

That’s because our previous relationship experiences shape our beliefs and actions – and they do so falsely most of the time.

Few people are ever truly, completely free of the ones they loved before us. You can be free, just few have done the work to achieve that. And so you and I are often the proxy for all the hurt and disappointment that their mother or their lover or whoever heaped upon them.

But we are also so much more than that. If we choose to be, we are healers. We can heal that original wound. In my own life, I had to start with the more merciful mindset that men and women are equal but different. I had to come to the conclusion that most of us are fundamentally good at heart or well-intentioned, but all of us act selfishly most of the time. So we are all guilty of being unfair at times

I had to learn enough self-compassion to get to the “other-compassion” that would allow me to say: I am a proxy for all the people who hurt you and were supposed to care for you and disappointed you. And I am sorry.

I had to realize: I know next to nothing about what it’s like to be somebody else! And then I had to release him for disappointing me as the one who was supposed to make me happy and whole.

About Suzanna Mathews

Suzanna is one of North America's leading trainers in interpersonal communication and social strategy — for cultivating business, friendship, or romance. A published writer and frequent radio, TV, and podcast guest, she is best known for foundingThe Date Maven, LLC, a boutique date coaching and matchmaking consultancy serving professional singles across the country. Businesses also seek out Suzanna to serve as a spokesperson and micro-influencer.